He was trying to work his wrists loose of the handcuffs, though he knew that bare-handed he stood very little chance against the old man. He had lost his pistol, and although, in the inside of his waistcoat, there remained intact the long, razor-sharp knife that had cleared him out of many a Continental scrape, the one infallible weapon when firearms failed, he knew that he would have no opportunity for its employment. Sitting down, he tried to perform a trick that he had seen on a stage in Berlin—the trick of bringing his legs through his manacled hands and so getting his hands in front of him, but he struggled without avail. There came the sound of a door opening, and Mr. Longvale’s voice. “I won’t keep you a moment,” he said. He carried a lantern in his hand that swung as he walked, and seemed to intensify the gloom. “I don’t like my patients to catch cold.” His laughter came echoing back from the vaulted roof of the cave, intensified hideously. Stopping, he struck a match and a brilliant light appeared. It was a vapour lamp fixed on a shelf of rock. Presently he lit another, and then a third and a fourth, and, in the white, unwinking light, every object in the cave stood out with startling distinctness. Michael saw the scarlet thing that stood in the cave’s centre, and, hardened as he was, and prepared for that fearsome sight, he shuddered. It was a guillotine! CHAPTER XL “THE WIDOW” A GUILLOTINE! Standing in the middle of the cave, its high framework lifted starkly. It was painted blood-red, and its very simplicity had a horror of its own. Michael looked, fascinated. The basket, the bright, triangular knife suspended at the top of the frame, the tilted platform with its dangling straps, the black-painted lunette shaped to receive the head of the victim and hold it in position till the knife fell in its oiled groove. He knew the machine bolt by bolt, had seen it in operation on grey mornings before French prisons, with soldiers holding back the crowd, and a little group of officials in the centre of the cleared space. He knew the sound of it, the “_clop!_” as it fell, sweeping to eternity the man beneath. “‘The Widow’!” said Longvale humorously. He touched the frame lovingly. “Oh God, I’m not fit to die!” It was Penne’s agonized wail that went echoing through the hollow spaces of the cavern. “The Widow,” murmured the old man again. He was without a hat; his bald head shone in the light, yet there was nothing ludicrous in his appearance. His attitude toward this thing he loved was in a sense pathetic. “Who shall be her first bridegroom?” “Not me, not me!” squealed Penne, wriggling back against the wall, his face ashen, his mouth working convulsively. “I’m not fit to die——” Longvale walked slowly over to him, stooped and raised him to his feet. “Courage!” he murmured. “It is the hour!” * * * * *